What happened to the Van's racing Thor boats?

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eekern

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 12, 2005
Messages
475
Hello, I have been out of the loop for a few years and I wanted to purchase a Van's racing Thor .21 size tunnel, They have seemed to have fallen off the map. Can anybody fill me in?
 
Ron Shaw is a distributor for Thor and and the new Taboo from Vans racing.  Contact Carl Van Houten he still sells them also
 
Hello guys.

The Thor kit builds up strong as a piece of steel with its core plate design but it has a lot of parts since every bulkhead is split and thus doubles all the parts. It was not a builder friendly method as it requires a large building board as well. Greg Schweers from Seattle won his district race with his Thor last year.  I looked around and did not like the way other tunnel kits were being assembled. So I have recently designed a couple of new kits using a refined three piece build that is more precision than anything used in other models kits.  I first tried this method when I kitted the new 3.5cc STX and I liked it so much that I used the same process with the new LSG 450 Outboard Tunnel kit. The 450 is a prototype with about 6 kits out there being tested.

I will bring the Thor kit back using this new method to see how people like the new build process but the kit will not be burned using the full core plate that runs from front to rear and side to side as before.  I may just drop back and only keep my core plate design in my sponsons and build it like that when I come back out with it. This is something that l plan to do over the next racing season so maybe by next fall I can have all that done. In the meantime my shop is busy running the Lynx 285 and Taboo 300 molds (Contact: Ron Shaw for these models) and when I am not doing that, I am working on the new 7.5cc Warhead II masters.

-Van's Racing

Carl,
 
Last edited by a moderator:
My Thor 355 as a Q Tunnel has been a hell of a boat. I really enjoy it and its won more than its share against some really fast nitro and gas tunnels out there.  

~James 
 
I have a large build board, if you have a Thor kit that is headed for the burn barrel I'd be interested.

mb
 
My Thor 355 as a Q Tunnel has been a hell of a boat. I really enjoy it and its won more than its share against some really fast nitro and gas tunnels out there.  

~James 
The acceleration and speed of your "Q" motor is just unreal. It is fun to watch you really get into it. We are all ready to see the QX-2!
 
 
To answer some Out Board questions:

I have pulled all my nitro molds from the shop. I have already sold the Savage molds to Jimmy Eddelman and Kenny Mudd will be getting the Taboo molds (I have the Taboo molds sitting in the crate to be shipped now) and all my remaining Nitro stuff is for sale.

New Projects - I am working on updating the 470 Gas O/B tunnel kit now. I am not sure when or if the kits will be for sale, we will see how these work out. There were a few of the new kits sent to people who were already running the 470's and so these new prototypes will be running in competition this upcoming year.

The engine in the video has not been broken in yet. That is Shane's THOR 470.

-Carl
 

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